Norwegian oil company Statoil has completed the drilling of wildcat well 6507/3-12 and appraisal well 6507/3-12 A, offshore Norway. The wells proved gas.
The wells were drilled about six kilometers east of the Alve field in the northern part of the Norwegian Sea and about 200 kilometers west of Sandnessjøen. They are located in production license 159 B, in a prospect named Mim, where Statoil is the operator.
The company got a drilling permit to drill the wildcat well 6507/3-12 in January and another one for the appraisal well 6507/3-12 A in early March. Both wells were drilled by the Deepsea Bergen drilling rig.
According to the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD), the primary exploration target for wildcat well 6507/3-12 was to prove petroleum in Middle Jurassic reservoir rocks (Garn and Not formations). The secondary exploration target was to prove petroleum in Middle Jurassic reservoir rocks (Ile formation). Another goal was to collect geological data if Cretaceous sandstone rocks were present.
The primary target for appraisal well 6507/3-12 A was to delineate the Cretaceous gas discovery (Lysing formation).
The well 6507/3-12 encountered a total gas column of about 7 meters in a Late Cretaceous sandstone layer with good reservoir properties. In the primary and secondary exploration targets, the well encountered about 30-meters of aquiferous sandstone in the Garn and Not formations, and about 65 meters of aquiferous sandstone in the Ile and Tofte formations, all with good to moderate reservoir properties.
The well 6507/3-12 A was stopped due to technical issues regarding presumed gas-filled sandstone, and no further attempts were made to drill the appraisal well.
Preliminary estimations place the size of the discovery between one and five billion standard cubic meters (Sm3) of recoverable gas. The licensees will assess the discovery along with other nearby discoveries/prospects with regard to a possible development.
Well 6507/3-12 was not formation-tested, but data has been collected and samples were taken.
These are the third and fourth exploration wells in production license 159 B. The license was carved out of production license 159 on August 13, 2004.
The well 6507/3-12 was drilled to a vertical depth of 3428 meters below the sea surface, and was terminated in the Tofte formation in the Early Jurassic. The well 6507/3-12 A was drilled to a vertical depth of 2529 meters below the sea surface and was terminated in the Springar or Nise formation in the Late Cretaceous. Water depth is 381 meters. The wells will be permanently plugged and abandoned.
The Deepsea Bergen drilling rig will now proceed to the Åsgard field in the Norwegian Sea to complete production well 6506/12-S-4 BH.